We said goodbye to the friendly firefighters and started the 15 mile bike ride to Thousand Oaks. We took our time getting there and arrived at about 10 am. We changed out of our biking attire, cooked some cup-o-noodles, and waited for Robert to get to the ranch. He finally rolled in at about noon and asked if he could help us. We told him that we were looking for Robert, and after us assuring him that we weren't owed any money, he admitted to being our guy. He quickly saddled us two horses, Pal and King, and a small group of us rode up the hill. It was a completely different riding experience than Idaho. It was beautiful and mountanous terrain but much dryer than the mountains of the great northwest. We went for a short ride, took a break, and then went for another slightly longer ride. We both started to understand that Robert was a funny guy with a great, confusing sense of humor. We say confusing because it was difficult to know when he was joking and when he was being serious. He told us that we were welcome to go home with him but that he lived in a very small trailer so there wasn't much room

. We assured him that we didn't mind a small place and that a couch would be fine. He then told us that he did not own a couch so we may need to sleep outside. We again told him that would be fine and that we had our camping gear all ready. He said that his trailer had a sort of soft top situation and so we could sleep on the top of the trailer if we'd like. By this point we were sure it was all a joke. Once we understood this it was much more funny to talk about just how uncomfortable we were going to be staying with him.

After Robert had finished up with work for the day we loaded up our bikes in the back of his truck and drove to his home in Castaic. On the way there Robert told us all about his girlfriend. This was his description, "She is a big girl, about 240-250. I keep buying her workout products for holidays but she is not getting the hint. She's also super mean, not nice at all. To add to it, she has the two most annoying dogs. One may very honestly be retarded." After spending the day with Robert we knew to take everything he said with a grain of salt. We giggled while he talked about her and told him that it sounded horrible. While we were pulling up to his home, which was not even close to a trailer, he laughed and told us that we would start seeing that some of the things he had told us were jokes but that others were true. We walked in the door and we were instantly met with one of his jokes. Sanaa, his girlfriend, was beautiful! She had a slender build and weighed about half of 240 lbs. But then, we were met with one of his truths. 2 tiny little dogs, one barking hysterically, approached us at a run. We all laughed.

The four of us went to Olive Garden for dinner and pigged out. Thank you for dinner, Robert! After dinner we all went home, watched the X Factor for a while, and then hit the hay. We wanted to be well rested for the roping event in San Luis Obispo the next day.